Do You Embrace Aging?

Or do you fear it?

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. ~Mark Twain

I am 42 and 3/4. No shame in admitting it. I don't try to pass myself off as 39. I haven't been carded in a very, very, very long time. And my bikini body is better suited to a one piece the last couple of years. What do you do, right? You can't stop the hands of time.

Does this mean I don't care what I look like? Hell, no. I totally care. I try to work out. I decline potato chips now way more than I did when I was 25. I find the wrinkles daily in the mirror. I hate the reflection my car window gives back and I'm convinced florescent lighting is the devils work. I use potions and lotions to stay "young looking." I struggle, more and more frequently, with age-appropriate wardrobe choices and I'm a little sad to let certain things go.

When it comes to aging though, I'm fighting a losing battle and I've come to grips with it.

Aging is a funny thing. Like slap your knee, ha ha kind of funny. Because if you don't find it funny, it can be downright depressing. Like right now for example, I could be all sad and glum that gravity is pushing my breasts down to my waist or I could be happy that the desk serves as a wonderful support platform. Perspective.

There is no doubt that there are things about aging that scare the hell out of me. Those are the things I like to keep pushed down in the dark corners of my brain. I don't relish the thought of disease or being a burden or losing those I love, or leaving those I love behind. Nothing funny about those things.

Everything else is fair game though, because not to be cliche, but as long as I have my health, I have everything. Wrinkles be damned. I used to know a guy, and everyday I'd ask him how he was and he'd say "I'm on the right side of the sod, so it's a good day." That's the attitude I want to carry with me as long as I can.

How are you with aging? Do you admit your age? What scares you the most? What makes you laugh?

Candace Derickx is a wife, mother, stepmother, volunteer, entrepreneur and recovering housewife. After years of judging mothers who worked outside the home and wondering how on earth they could send their kids to school with lunchables (gasp!), Candace’s June Cleaver ways recently got an ass kicking when this stay at home mother started her own business, Best Tools for Schools, and went back to work.

Now she’s trying to raise two little girls in a Bratz world, be a good stepmother to a teenage boy and keep her marriage strong while juggling work, home and life. Candace now believes popcorn is not a snack, it’s an entrée, clean clothes are a privilege, not a necessity and Martha Stewart will be dropping by at any moment to slap a condemned sign on her house

Join Candace each week as she blogs about the mayhem of returning to work and sometimes dropping the balls.